


so surprised you want to dance with me now

by boxedblondes



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Mid- and post-3x08, POV Eve Polastri, POV Second Person, obligatory post-bridge scene fic, we got plenty of villanelle angst this season so now it's eve's turn!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24527356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxedblondes/pseuds/boxedblondes
Summary: With her back to you – and then, once you’ve turned, flush against yours – you think about the past. All the big and little things that mattered so much at the time. All the loss. All the heartbreak. And as you think this over, you realize that, much as you can’t envision a future without her, the only past you care about is the part with her in it.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 39
Kudos: 219





	so surprised you want to dance with me now

**Author's Note:**

> Killing Eve finale really said #softvillaneve rights, huh. 
> 
> Title from "Pink Rabbits" by The National (just....... listen to the lyrics and tell me that DOESN'T make you think of these two)

This isn’t the end of the world, but it certainly feels like it is.

 _Stand up straight,_ she had said, _and look at me_. And you had, staring directly into her eyes as you waited for the inevitable. Because she’d promised you _easier_ , and the only thing easier than jumping to your death was being pushed to it.

It was fitting, you thought, to be watching her when it happened. _When I try and think of my future, I just… see your face. Over and over again_. It should have embarrassed you to say something like that, so open and raw. But it didn’t. After all, it was the truth. 

And if she was your future – even if that future consisted of only the brief few moments before you tumbled over the railing and into the river – then by god you were going to look your fill.

You watched her eyes as they darted back and forth across your face and wondered, perhaps inanely, whether there would be one last goodbye kiss before she pushed you off the bridge. A proper kiss this time. You wanted so desperately to look away, snuff out the squirminess of watching her watching you. You didn’t want to see the moment her tender expression blinked away to be replaced by the cold mask of a killer. But you forced them to stay open, and when she spoke again – _Turn around_ , before turning around herself – you realized there was a much worse fate than to die by her hands. 

_Do you ever think about the past?_ she had asked, back at the ballroom. _All the time_ , you’d replied.

With her back to you – and then, once you’ve turned, flush against yours – you think about the past. All the big and little things that mattered so much at the time. All the loss. All the heartbreak. And as you think this over, you realize that, much as you can’t envision a future without her, the only past you care about is the part with her in it. 

It is then that it really sinks in: She won’t be pushing you off the bridge tonight. She won’t be turning back around. And you’ll never have the chance to see her face again. 

Looking into someone else’s eyes is a form of nakedness all on its own. Several minutes ago, it was all you could do not to break that contact. And god, now that it’s gone you want nothing more than to have it back. Her back is a hard line against yours, a weighty presence grounding you to this place and this moment. You close your eyes and try to picture hers as they had been just a moment ago, soft and wide. At the time, all you could think about was how stripped you felt under her gaze, how _seen_. You hadn’t recognized the emotion in her stare. You hadn’t realized it was a goodbye.

You know what’s coming before she says it, and you have just enough time to realize that _oh, this is going to hurt_ , before she speaks again.

“Don’t turn,” she says. “Just walk.”

The thickness of your coat prevents you from really _feeling_ her; though your back is pressed firm to hers, there is no real sense of warmth or pressure. Still, you can feel the exact second her body is no longer touching yours.

And what is there left to do then but walk? 

As you’d expected, it hurts like hell, each step like pressing on a fresh bruise. You walk, on and on, hoping with each footfall that _this_ will be the one that finally loosens the vice cranked tight around your ribs. It’s a foolish notion, but it works for a while – a dozen paces or so – before the pain becomes more than you can bear. 

You can’t do it anymore. You can’t walk away from her. Not again. 

_Choices_ , you think to yourself. _It’s all about choices_. She’s given you a choice, you realize. And you’re going to make it. 

So you stop. So you turn around. So you look up into what you’re sure is going to be empty air and the silty smell of the river below you, and there she is.

Your heart pounds rough and heady as you stare at the solid, stationary line of her back. She’s stopped as well and you wish you knew what she was thinking. You’re sure it’s some variation of what you, yourself, were thinking in those seconds between stopping and turning around, a bittersweet Schrodinger’s paradox – _If I don’t turn around, she’ll always be right there behind me._ You wonder which outcome she’s hoping for: loyalty or heartbreak. Which does she expect? Was this a test? Did you pass it?

She turns around.

The world narrows to this single, lucid point. You realize, with a bubbling sort of mirth, that neither of you have actually made it very far. While you were walking, it had felt like forever, like you should be halfway to the other side of the world by now. But as you stand and watch her face move from fear to surprise to something soft and lovely, you realize she’s only a few meters away.

Without really thinking about it, you start walking back the way you came. After a few steps, you realize she’s walking towards you as well. After a few more, the look in her eyes crystallizes into something adjacent to wonder.

You might be crying. Your jaw is trembling in that telltale way, but your face is too numb from wind and emotion to feel much of anything right now. She’s crying, for sure. Unlike that time in your kitchen, you can tell it’s for real, something deep and painful in the way the tears trail down her cheeks.

She looks about as compromised as you feel – emotionally, physically, mentally. It’s alarming, disarming, and oh-so-beautiful to see. The both of you make quite the pair.

 _What now?_ you mean to ask. It comes out a bit more like, “Why didn’t you kiss me?”

“What?” she asks, lost and unfocused, like she’s coming out of a dream.

“Just now,” you clarify. 

Quite frankly, you’re too tired of dancing around the subject to pretend you were asking something else. “Before you told me to turn around. If you thought that was the last time you were going to see me… Why didn’t you kiss me?”

She smirks, bravado her telltale armor as always. “Why didn’t _you_ kiss _me,_ hm?”

“I did!”

“When?”

“On the – on the fucking bus!” You throw your hands up in exasperation. “I _know_ you haven’t forgotten about that.”

“Of course not,” she says with a look in her eyes that can only be described as devilish. “I think about it _all the time_.”

You laugh. “Me, too. God… I can’t believe I really did that.”

She shrugs. “No end to your hidden depths.”

Caught in a moment of silence, a natural lull in the conversation, you look out across the Thames and watch the silhouette of a boat, dark and shadowy, moving slowly over the still water. It’s always so easy between the two of you, you think, ever since the beginning. Is that strange? Should it be?

“You’re avoiding the question,” you say. 

“I know,” she says. “Just give me a moment.”

You give it to her. Finally, she sighs heavily and sinks down to the pavement, cross-legged in her expensive coat on the dirty ground. After the briefest of hesitations, you sit down beside her. “So...?”

“It had to be your choice, Eve,” she says. “All yours. If you wanted to walk away, _really_ wanted to, I wasn’t going to stop you.”

“So if you…?” you ask, leaving off the _kissed me_.

“Then it would be my choice,” she says. “Of course I _wanted_ to kiss you.”

The words shouldn’t be a shock – you’ve known for quite a while now how she feels about you – but they send a jolt down your spine all the same. It’s one thing to hope somebody wants you like you want them, but quite another to _know_ they do.

You didn’t know these kinds of things could really happen. That life could be just like the movies sometimes. You’d never envisioned yourself as the type of person who would chase after a train because it was carrying away the love of your life. And when you’d run out into the street, across the bridge – somewhere, _anywhere_ away from the look in her eyes when Carolyn told you to leave her behind – you never once dared to hope she’d chase after. 

You never expected that she would choose you, over everything. That you would choose her. That she would be staring at you like she is right now, so plainly full of love it makes your teeth ache. 

“Then do it,” you say, soft and quiet.

And she does.

**Author's Note:**

> I am never going to emotionally recover from this.
> 
> I'm on tumblr [@boxedblondes](https://boxedblondes.tumblr.com)


End file.
